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<title>To Tom Riddle, A Diary, From Helga Hufflepuff by generalzero</title>
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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/29076975">To Tom Riddle, A Diary, From Helga Hufflepuff</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/generalzero/pseuds/generalzero'>generalzero</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Help Will Always Be Given [8]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Angst, Ficlet, Grief/Mourning, Hogwarts Chamber of Secrets, Horcruxes, Kindness, Making Peace with the Past, Murder, Regret, Riddle at Hogwarts Era, Sad Ending, Tom Riddle's Diary, War, and with your failures and mistakes, anyway, everyone has a bit of all the houses in them, inspired by the bullshit sword of gryffindor out of sorting hat business, is often difficult, obsessive sorting culture is divisive my dudes, you can pry my bamf!Helga hc out of my cold dead fingers</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2021-01-30</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-01-30</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-18 11:13:27</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>386</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/29076975</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/generalzero/pseuds/generalzero</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>When Helga gave Tom a diary, she intended it to be the first of many gifts. Unfortunately, it is too little, too late.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Help Will Always Be Given [8]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/979713</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>4</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>17</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>To Tom Riddle, A Diary, From Helga Hufflepuff</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>This one is not quite in line with the actual series concept-- it's got the "Founders giving gifts to students" part but not the "sorting meta" part--but I've included it anyway.</p><p>Warnings: canon typical violence and language, heed the tags</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Helga has killed plenty of people. Before she became a healer, she was a warrior just as Godric was—they met on opposite sides of a battlefield. (Whenever Godric grows a little too arrogant, she makes a point of reminding him which of them walked away from that field unbeaten.) To be honest, despite spending most of her long life as a healer, Helga suspects that by the time she died the number of lives she’d saved was only slightly higher than the lives she’d taken. It’s so much easier to destroy than to nurture.</p><p>Helga has killed plenty of people, and not all of them out of necessity or righteousness. She has made her peace with that. But she has never killed anyone by accident. She has never killed a child. Until now.</p><p>When Helga gave Tom Riddle an elegantly bound black diary, she had imagined it to be the first of several gifts in her strategy to help him mend his heart and develop some compassion. Tom was not the kind of person who confessed his insecurities to anyone, and yet no one could keep all their worries and traumas bottled inside themself forever. Everyone needs a confidant. Especially poor Tom, who had enough resentment inside him that Helga feared it would consume him if not checked. A diary was a confidant of a sorts, one that held no judgement and could not betray you. Later, she would see about finding him a pet, a living creature to nurture and take comfort from. And much, much later, perhaps a human friend.</p><p>When Tom finally began using the diary regularly, Helga had been very pleased. It was progress, she thought.</p><p>It was not.</p><p>As one of her students is carried away a corpse, one is led away a criminal, and one walks away his head high despite a sundered soul, Helga does not cry. She is not the type for tears—neither healers nor warriors have much time for crying. For grieving, yes, grief is natural and inevitable. But in the meantime those who yet live must go on with living. Helga has always believed in making peace with the past and moving forward.</p><p>Helga will move forward. As a Founder, it is her duty. But she will never, never make peace with this moment.</p>
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